Avid released AvidPlay in July 2019 and updated it in January 2020. But how good is AvidPlay? They are entering an already busy market with plenty of options and so far there is no information out there to show whether what Avid is offering is good or not. So we decided to take to investigate. In this article, we share our exclusive research and show how AvidPlay compares with other digital music distribution services like Awal, CD Baby, DistroKid, Ditto, Landr, RouteNote, Spinnup and Tunecore.
What Is Digital Music Distribution
Digital music distribution is the process of delivering original music to digital online stores like iTunes and Spotify.
Digital music distributors make their money by charging upfront fees or charging a percentage of the revenue earned from the streaming and downloading of your music. In some cases, digital music distributors will also charge an ongoing annual fee to keep your content online.
There are plenty of companies out there that are willing to help distribute your music. A lot of them even provide other features that can also help support other important areas of your career.
One of the things our research showed is that comparisons are difficult to make in this sector, because each company offers a different range of services, with different feature sets and pricing structures.
In our research, we have chosen a good cross-section of services from the well established to the new kids on the block, which, of course, includes AvidPlay.
How Does AvidPlay Measure Up To Other Digital Music Distributors?
Let’s start with the comparison chart and then look at each of our selected digital music distributors in turn.
Notes
All prices in US Dollars. Note prices in other territories may be different.
All plans are for a single artist/band. Note that some digital music distributors offer multi-artist packages.
All plans include free UPC and IRSC codes except for CD Baby who charge for UPC codes - $5 for a single and $20 for an album
RouteNote also has a $9.99 annual fee on top of their Lifetime plans.
RouteNote also offer a free option with no front charges where they retain 15% like Awal
Tunecore has an offer where for an album you pay $29.99 for the first year.
Observations
In the research and preparation for this article, we have not used any of these services. All the information is taken from the digital music distribution services own web sites as well as a number of comparison articles on the internet, none of which include AvidPlay yet.
AvidPlay
AvidPlay is very much the new kid on the block in this sector. What is interesting is that AvidPlay is the only brand that offers the full range of options enabling you to choose the best way to pay for the distribution of your music.
Avid has partnered with EVEARA to offer AvidPlay’s music distribution service integrated into Avid Link. Avid describe EVEARA as ‘a state-of-the-art enterprise SaaS solution for digital music distribution’. But how does AvidPlay compare with the others?
When it comes to price, AvidPlay is the cheapest in the Single and Album Per Year categories, Its in the middle of the Unlimited Per Year category, competitive in the Single Track Lifetime category but the most expensive in the Album Lifetime category.
AvidPlay supports up to 192kHz 24bit audio delivery to digital streaming publishers which means when Apple transcodes to their Lossless codec there is no loss in sound quality.
AvidPlay offers Pre-Save links so an artist/band can promote their release prior to the release date. You can learn more about Pre-saves here.
AvidPlay now supports Dolby Atmos Music on Amazon Music, TIDAL and Apple Music as well as Artist IDs for Apple Music, Spotify and SoundCloud to ensure your music doesn’t get associated with another artist/band with the same name. Learn more in this Avid Article.
But it isn’t always just about price. There are some services that AvidPlay offers which a number of the other services do not include, for example, payment splitting. If you are a band, wouldn’t it be great if you could split up the royalties amongst the band automatically? AvidPlay offers this option across the board for free using Paypal with split percentages of your choice. Only Spinnup offers payment splitting for free like AvidPlay. Awal, CD Baby, Ditto, Landr, Spinnup and Tunecore do not offer payment splitting at all, whereas as DistroKid charges a fee of $19.99.
You access most digital music distributors via a web browser with only Awal and Tunecore offering an app. However, because AvidPlay is built into Avid Link you can access your AvidPlay account using either the desktop or mobile apps.
There is one neat feature we discovered in AvidPlay and that is SmartLinks. When you are setting up a song on AvidPlay and determining which streaming services you want to use, you can also set up smart links that enable you to be able to share links, via social media, to your song on a specific streaming service making it easier for self-published artists to promote your music on social media.
With regard to the quality of service for AvidPlay across the board, it’s too early to say, there isn’t the data out there yet as AvidPlay doesn’t feature in any of the comparisons of digital music distributors we found in our research. If you have any experience and observations do share them in the comments below.
Awal
Awal was acquired by music publishing company Kobalt and one of their selling points is the involvement of human beings in the process, including Spotify playlist pitching, although it isn’t clear how effective this is. They also offer the option of physical distribution if that is something you want.
Awal has a different business model, to most of the others, in that there are no upfront charges. Instead, they retain 15% of the royalties as fees.
Our research shows that Awal may be a good choice for artists who are already somewhat established and have a track record of consistent quality. This is somewhat confirmed by the fact that Awal is listed as Spotify preferred distributor in the Label Distributor category rather than the Artist Distributor.
CD Baby
CD Baby was one of the first brands in this space. Because they have been around so long they also have a physical distribution option.
Our research shows that they have a proven track record. CD Baby is also one of 4 Spotify preferred digital music distributors in the Artist Distributor category. However, they are faced with increased competition from more-specialised and less-expensive companies.
CD Baby only offer Lifetime packages for singles and albums, with the album fee significantly cheaper than AvidPlay, although you have to take into consideration that CD Baby retain 9% of your royalties whereas all the others except for Awal, do not retain any of your royalties.
DistroKid
DistroKid only offers an Unlimited Package for an annual fee which is $5 cheaper than Avid’s price point. However, in our research, we have learnt that DistroKid’s option does not include some features that may be important to you like determining your release dates, something you will have to pay extra for with DistroKid. Specifying your release date is included with AvidPlay’s equivalent option.
Spotify has acquired a minority stake in DistroKid but is keen to stress that DistroKid is still a completely independent company. In light of this, it is somewhat unsurprising that DistroKid is also one of 4 Spotify preferred digital music distributors in the Artist Distributor category.
DistroKid is one of 3 digital music distributors that offer payment splitting. However, AvidPlay and Spinnup provide this service for free, DistroKid charges a fee of $19.99.
They do have an interesting service called ‘Leave A Legacy’. If you pay $30 per release, DistroKid says that the release will never be taken down ‘even if you die’ hence the name. The need for the option is there because if you miss your recurring annual payment, DistroKind explains that your releases will be removed without the Leave A Legacy option.
Ditto
Ditto Music only offers the same annual Unlimited fee option just like DistroKid at the same price too.
If YouTube is a big part of your plan and a Vevo channel is something you would be interested in, then Ditto might be worth considering.
Our research also suggests that if you are in the Electronic/Dance music genre, Ditto has strong connections with platforms like Beatport.
However, we have also learnt that Ditto’s customer service is not good. For example, metadata errors taking months to be resolved.
Landr
Although Landr is well known for its online AI mastering service, they are relative newcomers to the digital music distribution sector.
They too only offer an annual Unlimited package which is just under twice the price of AvidPlay. However, if you take advantage of their mastering membership they include distribution with their mastering plans.
Looking at distribution alone, Landr may not be the strongest when it comes to the additional features that enable artists to promote themselves more. But Landr might be a good choice for both your mastering and distribution needs, making Landr your one-stop-shop for mastering and digital distribution.
RouteNote
RouteNote is based in the UK and has been in the digital music distribution business for over 10 years. They were one of the early adopters in the Chinese and Far East markets, where mobile phones are a key music platform.
RouteNote is like CD Baby in that they only offer lifetime single and album packages with the single price basically the same as Avid Play and CD Baby and their album package being 2/3rd the price of the Avid package and just $1 more than CD Baby, but be aware that RouteNote also charges an additional $9.99 annual fee.
They also have a free option with no upfront fees but with this option, they retain 15% of your royalties like Awal. But according to RouteNote, the good news is you can switch between the free and premium plans at any time.
Spinnup
Created by the Univeral Music Group, Spinnup appears to be a way for UMG to identify new talent, so if you want to get across their radar, then Spinnup might be the one for you.
However, Spinnup’s overall features appear to be on the limited side. For example, they do not appear to offer any way to monetise your music if someone uploads it to YouTube or SoundCloud. It would seem that Spinnup appeals to a specific niche: the independent artist who values industry-insider promotion and wants a streamlined distributor without any fancy extras.
That said, Spinnup only offers annual single and album plans that are double AvidPlay’s price for a single and for an album.
Spinnup is the only digital music provider other than AvidPlay to offer payment splitting for free.
Tunecore
Tunecore was acquired by Believe Digital a few years ago and although it is a well-known name in the digital music distribution sector, it would appear not to be innovating fast enough and we have seen reports of artists leaving Tunecore for other digital music distributors.
Like Spinnup, Tunecore only offers annual single and album plans and are double Avid Play’s price for a single and 2.5 times the price for an album, although they have a startup offer that discounts the album price from $49.99 to 29.99 for the first year.
Tunecore is the only digital music distributor other than Awal and AvidPlay that offers an app to enable you to manage your music on the go via your smartphone.
Want To Learn More?
As we said at the start we have chosen a selection of digital music distributors. If you want to explore this further and look at other digital music distributors, we were especially impressed with Ari’s Take and their comprehensive comparison chart.
Conclusion
As you will have hopefully worked out by now, there isn’t a best or a worst digital music distributor. You need to look around, work out what is best for your situation, matches your needs and make a choice.
That said, it strikes us that AvidPlay comes across as easy to set up and use and the prices are remarkably competitive with the possible exception of the Album lifetime option. However remember that RouteNote also charges an annual fee of $9.99 so after 2 years, RouteNote will work out more expensive than AvidPlay, which leaves CD Baby as the only competitor for AvidPlay in the Album Lifetime category, although you need to remember that CD Baby also retains 9% of your royalty fees as well.
So based on our research, we believe AvidPlay has a lot to offer in the digital music distribution sector and we recommend that you give AvidPlay serious consideration if you are in the market for a digital music distributor.
What About You?
Have used any digital music distribution services? How have you found them? Have they worked for you? Were they easy to use?
Are you using AvidPlay? If so what do you think of it? How easy is it to use? If not, what is stopping you from switching from your existing digital music provider?
Please do share your experiences in the comments below.